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Terrorism is about opportunity, and Iraq presents a convenient opportunity, but it's not a terribly conducive environment for anything other than hit-and-run operations. It's not an operational base and not a strategic asset. Terrorists may be coming in, but it's very temporary. Operational leaders of terrorist groups confine themselves to places where there is a congenial government or sufficient lawlessness, like the hinterlands of Afghanistan, the Northwest Frontier province in Pakistan and, increasingly, in places like Iran, a mecca for terrorists. That's not the case in Iraq because of the American presence but also...
...production isn't the only problem. The Pentagon's plans assumed that Iraq's industrial base and utilities were in working order. Instead, they're in a sorry state. And without basic utilities, factories aren't generating very much of anything--including badly needed jobs that would help win hearts and minds. The new Electricity Minister, Ayham al-Samaraie, estimates it will cost $18 billion just to fix the power grid...
...order came in at midnight. The soldiers were at their base in Beit Lid, at the edge of the West Bank in northern Israel, preparing to launch an assault against wanted Palestinian militants. As the elite unit reviewed its plans, Israeli intelligence officials phoned the commanders with an updated mission. A suspected terrorist had been tracked to a residential building in Nablus, the densely populated Palestinian city known to Israelis as the West Bank's capital of terror. In the past year Israeli forces claim to have caught or killed 120 Palestinians with plans to head from Nablus to Israel...
...with each mission. Immediately after receiving the midnight order to pursue the suspect in Nablus, Dan and his lieutenants began planning the raid, phoning nearby units to ask for extra vehicles, grenades and infrared light sticks to operate in the darkness. In a Spartan classroom at the Beit Lid base that functions as the unit's command center, Dan showed his troops magnified aerial images of Nablus' Old City, pointing out the target house and identifying positions for each soldier to take up on arrival. At 2 a.m., the unit piled into four armored buses and headed to Nablus...
While the rest of his unit unloaded its gear on the outskirts of the city, Dan went to the Tal Ara base, a rocky military outpost overlooking the city, to make a final check of the target's coordinates. Then Dan rejoined his men and gave them a pep talk. In speeches like these, he addresses his troops as "lions." Based on the accounts of the soldiers after the operation, Dan and his unit moved into the casbah at 2:30, using their preferred mode of transport--their feet. "You have to walk very, very carefully," he says. In groups...